The state of Louisiana abruptly fired men’s basketball coach Will Wade on Saturday, less than a week after the school received a notice of charges from the NCAA accusing Wade of five serious rule violations, including cash payments and job offers, to help lure a rookie to the team. school.
Wade and his deputy head coach Bill Armstrong were fired a day after the Tigers lost to Arkansas in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference tournament. Assistant coach Kevin Nickelberry will coach the 22-11 overall team in the NCAA Tournament, whose pairings will be announced Sunday.
Wade has been under scrutiny for about three years since Yahoo reported in 2019 that federal agents had recorded Wade in an intercepted conversation discussing a “strong offer” to Javonte Smart, a decorated high school player from Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Wade was suspended from the Tigers’ 2019 postseason games due to his refusal to cooperate with LSU officials, but was reinstated a month later after meeting with administrators and agreeing to an addition to his contract that would allow the school to dismiss him for good cause if he was found to have committed Level I or Level II violations, the most serious offences.
The notice of charges also states that Wade obstructed the investigation by refusing to hand over thousands of records and that in three interviews with investigators, he knowingly gave false or misleading information.
The NCAA report said that Wade denied inducement to recruit or acted unethically.
Wade said during the SEC tournament that he could not comment on the NCAA allegations. “Of course I look forward to commenting when this is over, but until then they won’t let us comment,” he said.
The taped call was part of a federal investigation that, when prosecutors announced the indictments in 2017, said it would expose the shady world of college basketball recruiting.
Ultimately, it was mostly assistant coaches and lower-level assistants who paid the price in the criminal justice system. Assistant coaches in Southern California, Auburn, Oklahoma and Arizona were convicted of bribery, as were two shoe company employees and an aspiring agent. Other schools that were investigated included Kansas State, Louisville, and North Carolina.
Wade is the first head coach to be fired after being directly blamed by the NCAA for the scheme. Rick Pitino was fired almost immediately from Louisville, where allegations that he approved recruit payouts, which Pitino denied, were the latest in a series of embarrassing misdeeds. And Sean Miller was fired in Arizona last year with one year left on his contract amid declining performance from his team and an NCAA investigation.
In announcing Wade’s dismissal, university president William F. Tate IV and athletic director Scott Woodward noted that the university and the men’s basketball program were “operating under a debilitating cloak of negativity.”
Their statement also says that the decision to fire Wade and Armstrong is not an admission of agreement with any allegations that the school is in the process of responding to.
However, this is only the latest scandal at the school.
An investigation sparked by a USA Today report last year found that administrators at LSU’s athletic department covered up sexual harassment complaints against a former running back and fought to silence sexual harassment allegations against former coach Les Miles. Two administrators who did not respond to complaints about the attack were disciplined but not fired.
Recent allegations by the NCAA regarding men’s basketball also include allegations that Booster paid $180,000 to the former football player’s father for a dummy job, and that former LSU star Odell Beckham Jr. provided the players with around $2,000 in cash after they won a national championship. in 2020.
The accusations against Wade and Armstrong are larger and more systematic. They include:
Wade pays silence money to keep the player’s ex-fiancee from talking about illegal payments.
Armstrong offers to provide the recruit’s family or associates with $300,000 in cash (in $50,000 installments), as well as providing a job, apartment, and car for the player’s cousin.
Wade sends payments from a bank account in his wife’s name to a recruiter who, in exchange, refers a potential client to LSU.
Smart played three seasons for LSU, leaving a year ago to enter the NBA draft. He was not drafted but signed a two-way contract with the Miami Heat last month.
Wade, 39, has coached at LSU for five seasons after previous spells at Chattanooga and the Commonwealth of Virginia. His best team was in 2019 when LSU finished 28-7 and won the SEC regular season championship with four players who went on to play in the NBA.
But these Tigers ended their season in the NCAA Tournament without a head coach, just like this year’s team.